Episode 160: Avoid the Weight Loss Scams

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss, where I help you get on track and stay on track with your weight loss journey. I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly, so let's get started. Hi, welcome to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss podcast.

[00:00:33] I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly. Now last week, one of my patients sent me a screenshot of a Facebook ad that they received, and it was for GOP1 Metabolic Boost Drops. It had an ABC News logo on the top.

[00:00:50] The advertisement that she saw said that it was FDA-approved, and it's better than all the medications that are on the market. And also the advertisement that she sent me showed that it was made in the USA.

[00:01:01] And she asked me, she's like, is this a good medication for me to take? Is this new FDA-approved? I go ahead and buy this medication. And so I actually looked at it.

[00:01:14] I went to a Google search, went to Amazon, and it looks like it says Made in the US, but on Amazon it said Made in China. When I looked at the ingredients list, it said purified water, sodium borate, preservative, chromium chloride, and a GOP1. And I'm like, really?

[00:01:33] Just a GOP1? Now, just to explain this, the term GOP1 is actually the name of a class of medications. And usually when you have a medication it has the individual name of the medication, such as when we hear of compound semi-glutide.

[00:01:53] Semi-glutide is a medication that is under the class of GOP1. Terzepetide is a name of a medication which is the same as Manjaro or Zepbound that is under the umbrella of GOP1. So this medication is not even giving you the name of the GOP1, it just says GOP1.

[00:02:12] Also what's suspect about it is that it said available July 24th. So literally this was like last week. So I told my patient, don't buy this, this is a scam. And to be honest with you, this is not the first time that I've gotten questions

[00:02:27] about products and whether it's good for you or not. I remember probably just last two months ago or three months ago when the Kelly Clarkson gummies were a big hit and everybody was asking about are these the gummies that we should

[00:02:44] be taking may help Kelly Clarkson lose weight. And then before Kelly Clarkson there were the Oprah pills. It was maybe about six months ago Oprah lost weight with these pills. Now, are these the bills that we need to take?

[00:02:57] And with the advent of AI, social media, Facebook ads, kind of that lack of accountability on social media, people get all these advertisements that tell them that this product is the best product for them and so and so is using it.

[00:03:12] And so I wanted to take this episode to kind of talk about how to avoid the scams of weight loss products because we know that people spend money to lose weight. The weight loss business brings in billions of dollars each year to help people with losing weight.

[00:03:30] And now that we have medications that are actually helpful that have been FDA approved to lose weight, everybody wants a piece of the pie. So I'm going to give you three ways or three strategies of things that you should do to help avoid the scam.

[00:03:47] Now mind you, this is just for medical information. They ask your doctor about anything that you're about to take because you want to make sure there's no changes or there's no interaction with what you are already taking and that this particular product is for you.

[00:04:02] But the first thing you should do is, you know, when it comes to supplements, make sure that you're getting supplements that are certified here in the United States. Now the FDA, the Food Drug Administration Department does not regulate supplements. So what should you do?

[00:04:20] Because they don't regulate supplements, what you see over the counter or what you see posted on Amazon or online, it's not regulated by the FDA. The FDA has a rigorous program on how they approve medications, especially pharmacy medications.

[00:04:37] It takes years for a pharmacy to create a drug, go through the different clinical trials in order to bring it to market. And so sometimes during emergencies, like during COVID, the FDA will approve like certain

[00:04:52] products that have been tested or they've been used in other ways, you know, for an emergency. But normally it can take years for a product to get approved. And when it comes to supplements, they don't have that same regulation.

[00:05:04] However, there are third party certifications that can help with verifying that a supplement meets the American national standard. And one of those third party certifications is called the NSF certification. And you can go to their website and search the product to see if it's been tested

[00:05:22] in meets the American standards. This is one way that you can tell or know that what that medication or what that medication or product or supplement is saying is in it, is actually in it.

[00:05:34] Because just like these metabolic drops that had a GOP one, how do you know that's really what they're taking? You don't. So this is one way. So make sure that you check to make sure that your supplement that you're taking number

[00:05:46] one is actually certified and actually meets the American national standard. Number two, don't believe the hype. Don't believe what Facebook says or Instagram ads say. If you pay enough money, you can get ads that target people who are interested in losing weight.

[00:06:03] And you may be able to get them to be seen by millions of people before people complain about the product and it gets taken off the ads and you get blocked. But what these con people do is that they'll have multiple, multiple sites that they use

[00:06:18] and they'll just put it out there and they'll just kind of bombard the system to the point that they can't be regulated or taken off. And so millions of people see this product in the case of these metabolic boost drops. My patients saw them on Facebook.

[00:06:31] It was a Facebook ad. And I don't know about you if you ask somebody or if you're talking to a friend about a certain product. Have you noticed that maybe the next day that you see this product kind of come up in your feed?

[00:06:44] That's because Google, Siri and Alexa are always listening. They're always listening unless you put for them not to listen. And so they listen to see what you're talking about, what you're interested in and they bring up these different topics in your feed to kind of help you go

[00:07:01] and go and buy like let's say if you're interested in dogs, they'll bring up videos of dogs or they'll bring up advertisement of dogs so that you can maybe go and buy a certain product. So they're tailorizing their ads to you.

[00:07:16] And that was the case with these metabolic drops is that my patient had is that she probably was looking online about weight loss or going on social media. She was following people who were talking about weight loss products. And this ad came up in the system.

[00:07:32] So if you see something that's a Facebook ad, treat it as like where you need to investigate further because you don't know is this a bogus product or is this real or not? Because like I said, people will place ads and they will be seen by millions

[00:07:48] of people before they get pulled as a bogus product. The other thing like I mentioned that I went to Amazon and sometimes Amazon has a lot of bogus products. And before you, you know, before they get pulled, you know,

[00:08:00] they'll be able to be seen by millions of people. In fact, when I went on Amazon and I looked at that product that she had sent me, 600 people have purchased that product. 600 people have purchased that product.

[00:08:15] So it is important that you kind of use everything with look at things with a grain of thought and do your research first. Number three, beware if you hear that a celebrity has endorsed this product. Like I said, several months ago, it was the Kelly Clarkson gummies.

[00:08:32] And you had all these keto gummies that were coming out on Amazon and on Facebook saying that Kelly Clarkson had endorsed us and they actually took a video of her talking about something totally different. And with AI, they changed her voice so that she was endorsing this product.

[00:08:49] And they made all these ads and they made it seem as if Kelly, this is what Kelly Clarkson used to lose weight. Now Kelly Clarkson has come out and said that she did use a weight loss product to lose weight, but she did not name it.

[00:09:01] And she said it was not ozempic. So therefore, and she also came out and said that she did not endorse these keto gummies. So it's important that you take it with the grain of salt before Kelly Clarkson, it was Oprah that had these Oprah pills and that Oprah

[00:09:16] used these pills to lose weight. Oprah had to come out and say, listen, this is a scam. I did not buy these pills because people were buying these pills because somebody said Oprah used them.

[00:09:26] So you have to look at this with a grain of salt just because they put a celebrity's name on it, they have the technology now to be able to just change what they're saying and make the voice sound just like them when it's not them.

[00:09:40] So the one thing you should do if you hear about a new product, number one, put it through a Google search, put the product name and add the word scam afterward and see what comes up. See what reviews come up for people who've unfortunately tried this product

[00:09:56] and it didn't work. Next, number two, if it's a supplement, make sure that you look at the NSF certification website to make sure it's actually real. Number three, if they say it's FDA approved like my patient said,

[00:10:10] go to the FDA website and actually search that product to see if it comes out. When I searched for that product, nothing was matching. So make sure you do your search. Lastly, ask your doctor to make sure it's OK for you to take this product

[00:10:25] just like my patient is. Send them be like, Hey, is this true? Because you want to make sure that it's OK for you to take with your body and with your medications that you're already taking by you taking the time

[00:10:36] to do a little bit of research about these different products that are coming up when not only does it save you more time, it also will save you money because like I said, 600 people bought those drops at $50 a pop.

[00:10:50] So those scammers made over $30,000 on this product and it's still there on Amazon. So people are coming and two people left the review saying, Oh, it didn't help me lose weight at all. So there's people bought it and were disappointed that it did not help them

[00:11:06] lose weight. So do your research. Don't get scammed because there's a lot of stuff that are out there that is not helpful for you. That's not going to allow you to lose weight. And so if you're really interested in and if you want to make sure go

[00:11:21] to like reputable websites like Mayo Clinic, you can go to WebMD places that actually have or reputable and are putting out helpful information. So I hope this helps. Thank you again for joining us on the back on track, achieving healthy weight

[00:11:38] loss. If you like this episode, please share with others. Like it and subscribe and don't forget to leave a five star review and we'll see you next time.